The Official Site of the Breakneck Hill Cow Fund…

Southborough Board of Health Gives Final OK to Sell Frozen Beef from Farm

Written by Paul on January 21st, 2014

The Breakneck Hill Cow Fund has taken a big step towards self-sufficiency. We applied for and have just received a permit to sell beef from the farm. Our 100 % grass-fed cows are taken to one of the two USDA certified processors in Massachusetts where they are made into various cuts of beef and packaged. The beef is frozen and then picked up and transfered to our freezer which is monitored for quality assurance by checking the temperature about every other day. The beef will be sold frozen so there is no handling except to put it in and take it out of the freezer. Our cows are truly local. They are born here and eat locally grown forage on our 30 acre pasture leased from the Town of Southborough. In the winter, they eat hay, locally sourced from three farms within 10 miles, Country Corner Farm in Sherborn, Glen Rock Farm in Westborough and Tufts Vet School farm. They spend they’re lives doing what cows are suppose to do, eating grass. No hormones, no antibiotics.

When you compare that to what is in the supermarket, those cows may be born on range but at weaning (about 6 months) they go to a feed lot where they eat a diet of mostly grain and live in horrific conditions. So bad that they are given low dose antibiotics to prevent disease. Their feed is high energy input grains subsidized by taxpayer through the Farm Bill. These grains require fertilizers with huge carbon footprints. Nitrogen in the form of ammonium nitrate, requires 3-5% of the worlds natural gas to make. The energy contained in its chemical bonds is demonstrated by the explosions at the West Texas plant that makes it last year and the Oklahoma City bombing. Phosphorus is strip mined from only a few places in the world. One being Florida, northeast of Tampa. It causes severe environments problems including radioactive materials in the waste. At the current mining rates, many of these places will run out in our lifetimes. The final main ingredient, potassium, is also a product of mining some many thousands of feet below the surface. Besides the huge energy input involved in fertilizer, millions of tons of of pesticides are sprayed on these crops. And because these crops require huge amounts of water, massive irrigation systems are built and run to provide water.
The average distance food travels to Massachusetts is about 1500 miles. We hope to at least make a little dent in this unsustainable system. If you are interested in purchasing beef of have any questions please contact me at 508-330-7216 or PaulBourdon1719@gmail.com